Books and Publications

Big Gifts for Small Groups: A Board Member’s 1-hour Guide to Securing Gifts of $500 to $5,000, by Andy Robinson, 2004, 112 pages, $24.95 plus shipping. A wonderfully engaging book for board members of small nonprofits (or anyone, for that matter) on the art of asking for major gifts from individuals. Order from Emerson & Church, Publishers at www.emersonandchurch.com or by calling 508-359-0019. Discounts available for quantities of 5 or more (call for information).

Getting Major Gifts, by Kim Klein, Third Edition, Revised 2000, excellent collection of articles from the Grassroots Fundraising Journal that will teach you how to develop a major gift program. 40 p, $12 plus shipping and handling. To sample the articles and order, visit www.grassrootsfundraising.org, or call, toll free, 888-458-8588.

An Introduction to Prospect Research, by Michel Hudson. Grassroots Fundraising Journal, Jan/Feb 2003. A great introduction to researching donors on the web. $3. Go to www.grassrootsfundraising.org, and click on articles then use the “Article Finder” at the bottom of the page to order.

The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko, published by Longstreet Pres, 1996. This book is the result of 20 years of studying the wealthy and presents a detailed and stereotype breaking picture of who the rich are and how they live. Buy it online at www.amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Major Donor Training

The Fundraising School, Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, 550 W. North St., Suite 301, Indianapolis, IN 46202, (800) 962-6692, www.philanthropy.iupui.edu. The Fundraising School offers college credit for its courses, as well as a certificate in Fund Raising Management for those completing the required courses. It has excellent courses on Major Gifts and related topics such as Planned Giving and Capital Campaigns which come with a money-back guarantee! Partial scholarships are offered for organizations with annual budgets under $1,000,000. Courses are offered at a number of different locations around the country. Check the web site for current offerings.

Association of Fundraising Professionals, 1101 King St., Suite 700, Alexandria, VA 22314, (703) 684-0410, www.afpnet.org. The national office of AFP offers several survey courses for fundraising professionals and a large annual conference, but of greater interest to grantseekers are the one-and two-day workshops sponsored locally by the 157 chapters of AFP throughout the US, Mexico and Canada. Check the Events Calendar (under About AFP), which lists events by month, and if you don’t see anything listed in your neighborhood, find the nearest chapter on the website and get in touch directly!

National Council of Nonprofit Associations, 1030 15th Street, NW, #870, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 962-0322, www.ncna.org. NCNA provides a state-by-state listing of member state associations, such as the Nonprofit Resource Center in Atlanta, GA, providing nonprofit support services. Many of these associations have training programs in Major Donors/Gifts and related topics. To find the state association nearest you, call NCNA or click the “State Associations” button on their web site.

Other Useful Web Sites

We have tried to choose some of the best sites out there from among the many available on major donors. The sites below are ones that we think will be around for awhile, offer free or very low cost resources, and are well managed and frequently updated.

www.americanrivers.org. Visit this web site (click on “Donate” and then on “River Guardians”) for a good example of an online major donor page.

www.contributionsmagazine.com. This is the web site of Contributions Magazine, a bi-monthly featuring some of the finest writing in America on nearly every facet of nonprofit operations. If you don’t feature shelling out $40 for an annual subscription, you can still check out their “How-To” Library which has a wealth of articles on major donors and major gifts.

www.environmentaldefense.org.
The web site of the Environmental Defense Fund has a nice page on stock gifts. Click on “Support Us,” and page down the menu to “Stock Gifts.”

www.forbes.com.
At this web site, you can click on “Lists” and view the 400 wealthiest people in America for each of the last eight years, sorted by residence, name, worth, and other criteria. If you find a name you recognize, you can click on it and learn more.

http://people.yahoo.com.
“The Internet Whitepages” contains millions of listings allowing you to search for contact information for potential donors. It is linked to www.USSearch.com where for a fee you can access public information on such topics as assets, home ownership, etc.

www.google.org.
This search engine can be used to get you started on donor research by doing a simple biographical search on your prospect (enter your
prospect’s name in quotation marks).

www.guidestar.org.
Foundation sites are useful when looking for data on individuals who have family foundations. Guidestar is the official site for electronically filed 990’s (foundation tax forms).

http://indorgs.virginia.edu/portico.
This amazing site put together by the University of Virginia’s research department is a collection of web sites containing publicly available information, compiled for the use of the development community. There are web sites for finding addresses and telephone numbers, lists of campaign contributors (with the amounts they contributed), and much, much more.

www.nwf.org. The National Wildlife federation has a nice page for their Heralds of Nature, members who contribute $1,000 or more. Click on “Donate” and then on “Heralds of Nature.”

www.opensecrets.org. This site, maintained by the Center For Responsive Politics, provides information on individual political contributions.

www.tgci.com.
This site of the Grantsmanship Center has an archive of great “how-to” articles under “Magazine” (click on “Fundraising”) including Getting Major Gifts, Rating and Screening Prospects and Using Statistics to Find the Dollars.

www.Zimmerman-lehman.com.
Zimmerman Lehman is a consulting firm dedicated to providing nonprofits with information on fundraising, marketing and planning, and board development. This site offers a wealth of information. You can subscribe to their free e-newsletter to receive educational articles. They also post free articles on their site, including Major Donors Campaigns and Researching Major Donors on the Web.